''King of Thieves'' is a 2018 British

heist film The heist film or caper film is a subgenre of crime film focused on the planning, execution, and aftermath of a significant robbery. One of the early defining heist films was ''The Asphalt Jungle'' (1950), which ''Film Genre 2000'' wrote "almo ...

directed by James Marsh. The film is based on the

Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary The Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary occurred in April 2015, when an underground safe deposit facility in Hatton Garden, London, owned by Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd., was burgled. According to official sources, the total stolen had an esti ...

of 2015, and stars

Michael Caine Sir Michael Caine (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English actor. Known for his distinctive Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films in a career spanning seven decades, and is considered a British film ico ...

Tom Courtenay Sir Thomas Daniel Courtenay (; born 25 February 1937) is an English actor. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Courtenay achieved prominence in the 1960s with a series of acclaimed film roles, including ''The Loneliness of t ...

Michael Gambon Sir Michael John Gambon (; born 19 October 1940) is an Irish-English actor. Regarded as one of Ireland and Britain's most distinguished actors, he is known for his work on stage and screen. Gambon started his acting career with Laurence Olivi ...

Charlie Cox Charlie Thomas Cox (born 15 December 1982) is an English actor. He is known for portraying Matt Murdock / Daredevil in several projects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, including lead roles in the television series '' Daredevil'' (20 ...

Jim Broadbent James Broadbent (born 24 May 1949) is an English actor. He won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his supporting role as John Bayley in the feature film ''Iris'' (2001), as well as winning a BAFTA TV Award and a Golden Globe for hi ...

Paul Whitehouse Paul Julian Whitehouse (born 17 May 1958) is a Welsh actor, writer and comedian. He was one of the main stars of the BBC sketch comedy series ''The Fast Show'', and has also starred with Harry Enfield in the shows '' Harry & Paul'' and ''Harry ...

and

Ray Winstone Raymond Andrew Winstone (; born 19 February 1957) is an English television, stage and film actor with a career spanning five decades. Having worked with many prominent directors, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, Winstone is perha ...

Plot

Brian Reader is a former thief who is now retired. At the funeral ceremony for his wife, Brian sees old friends from his days as a criminal. They briefly discuss their interest in pulling off one more heist, targeting the

Hatton Garden Hatton Garden is a street and commercial zone in the Holborn district of the London Borough of Camden, abutting the narrow precinct of Saffron Hill which then abuts the City of London. It takes its name from Sir Christopher Hatton, a favourit ...

Safe Deposit. Shortly after the funeral, Brian and the other thieves meet to plan the robbery in earnest. Nearly all of them are older men, in their 60s and 70s. The only younger man is Basil, an alarms expert who comes by a key to an exterior door of the building containing the Safe Deposit. The thieves decide to execute their heist over the Easter holiday weekend to maximize their time for the break-in and minimize the risk of being discovered. Posing as gas repairmen, they enter the deposit building, deactivate the alarms, and proceed to drill a hole into the wall of the

vault Vault may refer to: * Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards Architecture * Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space * Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored * Burial vault (enclosure ...

. The jack they use to push the cabinet of safety deposit boxes away from the wall breaks, adding a wrinkle to their plan. They all leave, intending to return with a new tool the following day. However, Brian has a change of heart and decides it is too risky to go back. Basil meets with Brian to try and convince him to go back and finish the robbery. Brian refuses, but gives Basil a note listing the safety deposit boxes that contain the most valuable diamonds. In return, Basil promises to give Brian half of his take from the robbery. Basil and the other thieves return to the Safe Deposit with the replacement tool and successfully push the cabinet away from the vault wall, enabling two of them to climb through into the vault. They then use crow bars to break open many of the safety deposit boxes and steal their contents, which add up to more than £14 million in jewels and cash. The thieves put all of the loot into duffel bags and drive away from the scene of the crime. They proceed to the home of one of the robbers to split up the stolen goods. As they begin to discuss the split, Basil realizes that the older thieves were never planning on giving him an equal share. Fearing for his life, he takes several fistfuls of cash and quickly leaves. What the other thieves do not realize until later is that Basil had also taken the high value diamonds from the safety deposit boxes that Brian had written down for him. Meanwhile, the police are alerted to the crime and begin a high-profile investigation. They review all

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly t ...

footage from the area and soon discover a car parked in the area that belonged to one of the thieves. After tracing the car's number-plate to the thief's actual identity, the police are able to tap all of the gang's phones and follow their movements. After learning of the value of the loot, Brian tries to force the group to split with him since he was the one who masterminded the robbery. As the thieves grow increasingly wary and distrustful of one another, they have a number of unguarded conversations that provide the police with evidence of their culpability. By further spying on the gang, the police learn that the group is planning to meet in order to do a final split of the stolen goods. The police move in and arrest the gang at their meeting. Brian, who was not invited to the meeting, is arrested at his home. The only one to escape is Basil as he wore a disguise during the robbery, left shortly after the Easter weekend, and was never a former associate of the older thieves. At the end, the old thieves are in custody and are shown changing into suits for their court appearance. They seem unconcerned about the prospect of returning to jail and appear to have accepted Brian as their unspoken leader once again.

Filming

The main bulk of the scenes were filmed in central London and around

Margate Margate is a seaside resort, seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay and Westbrook, Kent, ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, including scenes at the Wig and Pen Pub, the Nayland Rock Hotel, Harbour Arm in Margate, outside the

Turner Contemporary Turner Contemporary is one of the UK’s leading contemporary art galleries. Celebrating Margate’s connection with the painter J.M.W. Turner (1775 – 1851), an artist who believed that art could be an agent of change, its year-round exhibition ...

, and a scene at

Margate railway station Margate railway station serves the town of Margate in Thanet, Kent, England. It is down the line from . The station and all trains that serve the station are operated by Southeastern. Trains from the station generally run to Victoria via or t ...

. Abbott's Cliff in

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

can also be spotted in the train scene where Brian Reader (

) travels to Margate.

Cast

as Brian Reader *

as Terry Perkins *

as John Kenny Collins *

as Basil *

as Carl Wood *

as Billy "The Fish" Lincoln *

as Danny Jones *

Francesca Annis Francesca Annis (born 14 May 1945) is an English actress. She is known for television roles in '' Reckless'' (1998), ''Wives and Daughters'' (1999), ''Deceit'' (2000), and '' Cranford'' (2007). A six-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, she won the 1979 ...

as Lynne Reader

Soundtrack

A cover of " The Man" originally by

The Killers The Killers are an American rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingd ...

was released by jazz-pop singer

Jamie Cullum Jamie Cullum (born 20 August 1979) is an English jazz-pop singer, songwriter and radio presenter. Although primarily a vocalist and pianist, he also accompanies himself on other instruments, including guitar and drums. He has recorded nine stu ...

as the lead single from the ''King of Thieves'' soundtrack.

Benjamin Wallfisch Benjamin Mark Lasker Wallfisch (born 7 August 1979) is a British composer, conductor, orchestrator, and producer of film scores. Since the mid-2000s, he has worked on over 75 feature films, including composing original scores for '' Blade Ru ...

composed the music for the film. The score was released by

Milan Records Milan Records is a record label located in Los Angeles, California specializing in film scores and soundtrack albums. In addition, Milan boasts an extensive electronic catalog which features down-tempo, chillout, and eclectic electronic releases ...

Critical reception

On review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "''King of Thieves'' unites an incredible cast for a heist movie brimming with potential -- most of which, sadly, evaporates long before the end credits have started to roll."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gives it a weighted average score of 48 out 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave the film two stars, saying "We get one or two cool touches. Broadbent is interestingly cast against type as a nasty piece of work, and I liked Winstone laughing with incredulous joy as he clambers into the Aladdin's cave of the strongroom. But what a mess this is: not funny enough to be a comedy, not exciting enough to be a thriller, not interesting or convincing enough to have any documentary value."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:King Of Thieves 2018 films 2010s crime comedy-drama films 2010s heist films British crime comedy-drama films British heist films Films directed by James Marsh Films scored by Benjamin Wallfisch Crime films based on actual events Films set in London Films shot in London Working Title Films films StudioCanal films Saban Films films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films